Luca Hammer
@luca
Followers
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Following
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324
Statuses
596
Twitter was my special interest. New home: Scientific Programmer @sfb1472 | luca @lucahammer .com
Joined January 2008
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Pinned Tweet
Someone was so annoyed about Xcorp that they created a script to delete all your Tweets for free. It was me.
Tutorial in German and English
#AbschiedVonTwitter
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Last weekend, I built . It scans the accounts you follow on Twitter for fediverse handles and links. Those are then sorted by instance to make it easier for you to decide which instance to join and follow the accounts you already like. Can even be imported.
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Next week, there won't be a free Twitter API anymore. As a result, I will stop any work on non-commercial projects that use the API and will have to re-evaluate which commercial projects are still feasible.
This change will destroy research, activism and commercial projects.
Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead 🧵
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@frank_rieger
Erste Version ist fertig. durchsucht Name, Beschreibung, Ort und URLs der Followings auf Twitter nach
#Fediverse
-Handles (
@user
@host
.tld, user
@host
.tld and host.tld/@user) und gibt sie als Liste und CSV aus, das dann in
#Mastodon
importiert werden kann.
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@tinysubversions
I just finished a tiny tool that searches through screen name, description, location and url field to find fediverse handles:
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Important todo for you: Make sure that you don't use Twitter to log into any services that are important to you.
Go to to see all apps that you logged into and make sure that the important ones have at least one other login option (eg mail/password).
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I am not against paying for API access. I spent thousands of Euros with Twitter since they released the Premium API. But I won't anymore for personal (don't support assholes) and business (only work with reliable partners) reasons.
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If you want to find your Twitter contacts in the fediverse, use before 2023-02-09 because I don't think I will be able to keep it running after that.
Last weekend, I built . It scans the accounts you follow on Twitter for fediverse handles and links. Those are then sorted by instance to make it easier for you to decide which instance to join and follow the accounts you already like. Can even be imported.
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With Musk in control, I don't see a future for Twitter and that makes me sad.
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Today was intense. I took me several hours, but
#FediFinder
is fully functional again and ready for more users.
If is down, you can use and .
Or try by
@pruvisto
.
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And Musk is lying. You can't create accounts through the API. The API only lets you manage accounts that already exist.
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I am just another animal that sees the bait and can't but die.
How do you define "fake accounts"? In the past Musk talked about "spam bots" (maybe accepting that there are non spam ones) in contrast to "real humans" (are there non real humans?).
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I am feeling the heat. The second
#fedifinder
backup server is up again.
Please use or to find your Twitter contacts in the
#fediverse
. (They run a slightly newer version of fedifinder as well, but you can ignore the features).
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Big performance update for . During peak hours, it's still slow, but you should not get timeouts anymore.
Go and
#fedifinder
your people!
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Now you can scan the members of your Twitter lists for fediverse handles.
#fedifinder
#newFeature
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The end of the free Twitter API probably means the end of free accounts. 44k users, 3k active in the last two weeks.
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About that reliability thing. Twitter announced the end of free API access with a one week notice and without any information what the basic tier will cost or include.
And then the CEO posts things like this. Suddenly it's not the devs who would have to pay, but the users.
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»The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives individuals the right to ask for their data to be deleted and organisations do have an obligation to do so…«
Since XCorp turned off their API, it became hard to delete all Tweets. This script helps:
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That's not how Twitter identifies spam. That's how they evaluate how much spam is left after they automated systems remove about a million accounts per day. Why would you put that misunderstanding in an official response?
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Yesterday, I tweeted that I don't see a future for Twitter under Musk. Here is another reason:
Echo chambers aren't real. Social media, especially Twitter, exposes people to more views than ever before.
Read "Are Filter Bubbles Real?" by
@snurb_dot_info
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@frank_rieger
@LeaRichterin
It's currently super slow. I may have to look into a different hosting solution. Until then, I setup two backup services, which are still kinda available.
seems to be holding up better.
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The new is here!
Join the
#fediverse
in five easy steps:
1. Find an instance
2. Publish your handle
3. Scan your Twitter network
4. Export your network
5. Import your network
Done.
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Sad update. There will be only 3 Twitter API access levels in the future.
- Limited free
Login and write access (1500 per user token)
- Basic $100
"Low level of API usage"
- Enterprise $$$$+
Talk to your sales agent.
No academic access, no premium access, no elevated access.
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Musk, who wanted to make Twitter bot-free, will instead offer free API access for bots.
What is a "light, write-only API"? What is "good content" and will there be humans to check each piece of content from bots if it's good enough?
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Old vision: “We serve the public conversation".
New vision: “The everything app”.
If you can't do one thing well, try doing everything!
#TwitterIsDead
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At first I was confused, but it's probably the correct move by Twitter. Musk already said, he wanted to buy Twitter and then tried to not honor the contract. Twitter has no reason to believe him now and the trial seems to go in their favor.
Breaking: Elon Musk’s lawyers said that Twitter is refusing to accept the Tesla billionaire’s renewed $44 billion bid for the social media company and are asking a Delaware court to halt an upcoming trial.
This is starting to look like a pump and dump.
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Every 10th follower of Twitter but only 100 means that the sample will probably contain accounts that were created within a few hours. Not random at all.
Once you got your sample, you can analyze it. How do you identify fake accounts? You can't, because you have no definition.
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You aren't allowed to link social media profiles? Put your website with a RSS feed in your bio and use this ancient tool (2018!) to find feeds of your followings! Import and read them in a convenient single app. These days, I'm using miniflux.
#fedifinder
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Source:
Ignoring the first 1000 followers excludes the vast majority of accounts on Twitter.
Looking at every 10th follower sounds good as long as you have endless time to look at thousands of accounts. But he wants to look at only 100.
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Surprise. The API did not get turned off today, but there is a new announcement that it will be turned off on 2023-02-13. Another four days of uncertainty. Can this be the new full self driving meme? Announce it, but never implement it.
We have been busy with some updates to the Twitter API so you can continue to build and innovate with us.
We’re excited to announce an extension of the current free Twitter API access through February 13. Here’s what we’re shipping then 🧵
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still works to find your contacts in the fediverse. Don't forget to add a link or username to your profile.
#mastodon
#fediverse
#twitter
#fedifinder
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Ignoring the first 1000 followers. Why? Because they are more likely humans (friends & family as startup people like to say).
I looked at 2.2 million German tweeting accounts. The median follower count is 204. The median active follower count (>2 German Tweets in month): 24.
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Twitter got quite good at identifying and blocking automated spam. As a result there are new tactics like paying people to spam: . Those are real people that share marketing for money. Like influencers but for cheap.
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How do you draw a random sample of Twitter accounts? The IDs aren't sequential anymore, so that doesn't work. Spam accounts are more active than non spam accounts; Every activity based sample (Tweets, Followers) will overrepresent them.
Let's look at Musk's solution.
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$100 for basic access but no info what that means.
Shocking to me: The Premium API access will be turned off as well. That's where I spent most of my money with Twitter. It's like Enterprise API acccess but self-service and starting at a lower price point. I don't get it.
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@frank_rieger
@LeaRichterin
Anyone with a Twitter Developer Account can setup their own fedifinder with a few clicks.
But in general, the code simple isn't optimized for many concurrent users, but for quick development. Any optimizations are welcome.
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New features:
- Proper check if a host is part of the fediverse (thanks
@pfefferle
)
- Some stats about the instances and if their registration is open
- Better data handling which results in less requests and less flickering
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1. Request a backup of your data
2. Download and unzip
3. Copy the script
4. Open
5. Open the browser console (F12)
6. Paste the script and press enter
7. Select the tweets.js file from your data export
8. ✅
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Musk equates far right and far left (horseshoe theory). The far right who wants to kill people that look different to them and the far left who wants to stop the far right from killing people, if needed with force. To Musk they are the same.
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According to the email from Twitter, the free API access will be turned off today.
I am using it for a last run of
#fedifinder
:
About a third of the accounts I follow, got a fediverse account in their profile.
Follow me on
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It's much harder to identify fake accounts. Of impossible. Especially from only public data.
I operate several Twitter accounts. Some under my government issued name, same with pseudonyms and some with a fictional identity (eg
@HammerSolar
).
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I'm not saying that there is no spam or that it's impossible to identify it. I did it quite often in the past (eg ). But in most cases looking at a single account isn't enough. And there are many cases where it can't be determined.
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Another delay (nice). This time without a date. Probably to reduce the amount of future delays (smart). Just keep them coming.
If someone can point me at that so called enthusiasm, that would be nice. Because my last two weeks were fkng stressful.
There has been an immense amount of enthusiasm for the upcoming changes with Twitter API. As part of our efforts to create an optimal experience for the developer community, we will be delaying the launch of our new API platform by a few more days.
More information to follow
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Is
@HammerSolar
a fake spam bot?
Is it a bot? At least it claims to be. But actually I still operate it by hand and add custom text on some days.
Is it fake? No, it's transparent about being a bot. Wait, it's not fully automated. So it is fake!
Is it spam? To some people, yes.
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@Linuzifer
Die neue Version gibt es unter . Ist etwas schicker und man muss weniger klicken. Ich beobachte noch bezüglich Bugs/Performance bevor ich umstelle. Kann aber schon voll genutzt werden und Feedback ist immer willkommen.
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I haven't been on Twitter the last few days, but will try to answer some questions around
#fedifinder
.
Please give the new version a try and let me know if something didn't work or could be improved:
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Spam accounts are easier to identify because spamming is an activity. You can look at how an account acts. What do they tweet, how do they follow and interact with others. But humans can and do spam all the time. It's not just automation.
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Twitter explained their sampling process in a report and Musk never read it.
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Any vision for Twitter by Musk will be based on these flawed beliefs.
It's like trying to squeeze a lemon so hard that it produces orange juice.
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now finds Bluesky accounts as well.
#Bluesky
is a demo app for the
#ATprotocol
. An alternative federation protocol to
#ActivityPub
(used by eg. Mastodon).
Currently my Twitter followings are connected to 515 fediverse and 52 Bluesky accounts.
#fedifinder
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@frank_rieger
@LeaRichterin
#Fedifinder
should be much faster now. Instead of doing database lookups on the server, a list of all known instances is sent to the client which first checks that list and only uses the database if a domain is unknown.
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Why every third party audit has to be wrong (and the good ones acknowledge it): Twitter talks about 5% fake accounts not from all accounts, but from mDAUs (monetizeable daily active users). Only Twitter knows which account is monetizeable.
By design it's impossible to compare.
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If for some reason the new doesn't work for you (token error; login issues; etc.), you can still use the original version: .
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Lunchbreak productivity. People were curious if fediverse handles in their own profiles got found. They are now displayed at the top of the results.
#fediverse
#mastodon
#twittermigration
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now finds Threads accounts as well. They haven't enabled their ActivityPub support yet, but I recommend to export your contacts rather sooner than later.
491 fediverse handles.
93 Bluesky handles.
53 Threads handles.
#fedifinder
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The core reason Musk gives for buying Twitter is wrong.
Are there platforms that cater primarily to extremists? Yes.
Why do they exist? Because platforms like Twitter rightfully deplatformed those people to allow healthier conversations.
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It's nearly the same content every day. It uses hashtags to get more visibility. But it's not excessive. It follows other bots.
What is it then? I don't know. And I
The automated bot detection tool Botometer on the other hand is convinced that it is a spam bot.
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Inactive account policy stated "6 months" since at least 2018.
Between 2023-04-19 and 2023-05-3 it was changed to "30 days".
Deleting inactive accounts is bad. You could release usernames without deleting the account, but simply changing the handle. (Would still break links.)
ICYMI: Twitter is cracking down on 'inactive accounts', starting right now. Accounts are already being taken down for inactivity.
What I had ASSUMED though, that it'd be counts that were maybe 3 years inactive, 5 years, 10 years maybe. NO, IT'S 30 DAYS!
Gone for a month? BANNED
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Did you know that you can export the profiles of all the accounts you follow (even through lists) with . Even if they haven't shared any other profiles.
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Twitter did turn off something: The developer forum at , where devs figured out together how things work and what these announcements mean.
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@Felicea
#Fedifinder
kann auch die Profile von den Accounts exportieren, die noch keinen Fediverse-Account haben.
Im Bereich "More infos about accounts". Als CSV oder JSON. Dort sind dann Nutzername, Name, wie der Account auf die Liste kam (following, follower, welche liste), urls etc..
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Fedifinder is working again. Find your Twitter contacts in the fediverse:
I was able to fix it by rewriting the Twitter API parts, which got me a new error message and made me realize that the issue had to be fixed in the developer dashboard.
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I love the idea of a universal basic income and I hope it will materialize in a form that improves the life of many.
#Grundeinkommen
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@achisto
I even have a tool to get the feeds of the websites of all the accounts you follow: (
#fedifinder
is a fork of that tool).
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By ”Twitter„ in the Tweet above I mean the shareholders represented through the board, not the people working there or the users.
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Tired: X/Twitter removed the ability to search for Tweets without an account.
Wired: X/Twitter removed the ability to look at Tweets without an account.
When will Google stop showing Tweets in the results because the majority of users can't click through.
#AbschiedVonTwitter
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Some people seem to be confused why Twitter doesn't remove those 5% of fake accounts, if they know them. The thing is: They don't know them.
It's an estimate based on manual internal audits after the ones they automatically identified got removed.
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Twitter manually reviews 36.000 accounts per year to estimate how many spam accounts their automated systems miss.
I am convinced that at some point they said "sampling about 100 per day" and Musk used that as the total.
I'm going to love hearing what opposing counsel has to say about this.
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I disagree with the result because Botometer isn't accurate enough. But
@timothyjgraham
shared the IDs and scores so you can look at them yourself.
Challenge accepted.
I collected data on
@elonmusk
's most recent 14000 followers* and ran a scientifically validated bot detection model (
@Botometer
*)
The results suggest that around 8.6% of Musk's followers are automated accounts 🤖
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Still waiting for at least some IDs to check if they identify what they claim to identify.
On Friday,
@ElonMusk
said his deal to acquire Twitter was on hold pending an analysis of "spam/fake" accounts.
We've now completed an analysis of 44,058 public Twitter accounts who've tweeted in the last 90 days. 19.42% are likely spam or fake.
Details:
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@TinkerSec
I created a tiny tool that searches the profiles of the people you follow on Twitter for hints of fediverse accounts and gives you a CSV to import them all at once:
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Journalists are one of the most important audiences on Twitter. In German speaking countries less than 5% of the population are on Twitter, but 60% of the journalists. Similar amount for politicians.
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Twitter removes obvious fake accounts, but there are many more that aren't obvious. Those get locked. From outside you can't see a difference, but the account can't interact until the owner unlocks it by logging in and solving a challenge (captcha, conforming email or phone).
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Why four days? Probably because of the Super Bowl. Until after that Twitter employees should not work on new features.
SCOOP: Elon has emailed staff following the Twitter outage.
“Please pause for now on new feature development in favor of maximizing system stability and robustness, especially with the Super Bowl coming up.”
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More evidence against 'filter bubbles' and 'echo chambers': "by focussing on just the news sections of public proadcasting Web sites, it became clear that populist citizens do not avoid public service news."
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The days became weeks. So much stress for nothing. On the other hand, it could be over any moment. But if it wouldn't take longer than days they wouldn't have to announce that, right?
Twitter is committed to the success of our Developer ecosystem. Our previous updates still stand as we phase our roll-out over the next few weeks so that we can focus on the quality and performance of our platform. Thank you!
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Twitter suspended another one of my apps.
#fedifinder
still works. Walking dead. Use it, while you can.
Read more
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I will append some takes by other people.
Twitter has been abuzz recently with discussion of estimates of the percentage of Twitter accounts that are bots/spam/fake (which aren't the same thing, btw). For a variety of reasons, I am of the view that no one outside of Twitter can produce a useful estimate.
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Musk insinuates that Twitter was on the brink of becoming an platform for political extremes while the opposite is true as evidenced by the deplatforming of people with extreme views.
(We could discuss about too little, too late, but that's details.)
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I don't know how often I have to say it: Botometer is the best tool to automatically identify Twitter bots, but it's still unreliable.
Using it to prove Twitter's manual evaluation wrong is laughable.
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Musk tries to delegitimize traditional media. Yes, there are media organizations that have left all principles of journalism behind them and became way to popular with it. But it's not "much of traditional media". But the ones with the biggest audience.
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@innerand
@Blues_Spieler
Sogar eine Login-Schranke akzeptiert Google (siehe paywalls), aber redirect von nicht eingeloggten Nutzer*innen führt zur Entfernung. Würden bei Twitter noch motivierte Menschen arbeiten, hätten sie ein Overlay statt einem Redirect umgesetzt.
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Musk acts like a troll that doesn't understand the consequences of their actions.
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Does social media increase polarization? Our new PNAS study (w/
@Jonathan_Nagler
@j_a_tucker
@RichBonneauNYU
) in Bosnia and Herzegovina finds: Users who deactivated FB profiles reported more negative attitudes toward ethnic out-groups.
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